Matt

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 08:16:29 GMT

“O, Somnus,
divine repose of all things!
Gentlest of the deities!
Peace to the troubled mind,
from which you drive the cares of life.
Restorer of men's strength
when wearied with the toils of day.”

It ain't workin'.

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 05:37:12 GMT

I have been praticing my guitar more lately and have been searching for new songs to learn that I would enjoy playing. I came across this:

Outkast's 'Hey Ya'

I want to be that guy.

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 18:25:09 GMT

Stronger! stronger! grow they all,
Who for Coca-Cola call.
Brighter! brighter! thinkers think,
When they Coca-Cola drink.

-- Coca-Cola advertising slogan, 1896

I don't know why this made me smile so much, but it did.

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 18:07:14 GMT

Punctuation is important.

Million dollar comma.

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 15:55:17 GMT

After writing a rant and deleting it several times, I have decided to put my continuing work frustrations down in haiku.

You pose a question
You frown at my responses
I have work to do

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 18:54:54 GMT

Unfortunately, those that I work with that may actually read this would not need this info, but anyways:

If you 1) don't have any idea of the technical scope of what is involved and 2) feel the need to voice your 'concern' for no reason I can fathom - I am going to put your concern in the huge stack I am building on my desk that are just like it.

I will not be holding your hand to soothe your concerns. I am not going to change the plan just so you see a change in something figuring it must be better. I am not going to waste time explaining all my decisions.

Fess up. Who drinks this?

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 15:17:27 GMT

I disembarked from the shuttle with a couple of my minions this morning and went into the corner store because they needed to acquire foodstuffs.

While they waited in line I had a moment to browse the beverage fridge. I was hoping to see Sugar-Free Full Throttle, but instead I saw *this*.

This is the definition of Clamato from Wiki : Clamato is a trademark of the Mott's company which denotes a beverage made primarily of reconstituted tomato juice concentrate and reconstituted dried clam broth, with a dash of high fructose corn syrup, and USDA Red 40 to maintain a natural tomato color.

Who needs coffee when you can drink souped up reconstituted dried clam broth?!

Let me tell ya - I do. You can keep your tomato, clam, ginseng and guarana mix.

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:23:00 GMT

One more note before I start the day in earnest.

One of the fine people who sell me coffee in the morning said that someone there contacted someone involved with the investigation of what went down on Monday (I think she said the coroner or something, I missed it) who said that it was determined that it was a case of a diabetic going into shock, smashing out all the windows and then expiring in the car.

I will now try to fight the cloud of melancholy that is following me around now.

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 14:47:29 GMT

Rockstar, the makers of Grand Theft Auto, Smuggler's Run, and Max Payne have released another game.

Table Tennis.

Just plain ol' ping pong? I anticipate a mod where the players are nude and you are playing with someone eyeballs or something.

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 16:38:26 GMT

Warning! Don't click the link below if you do not want to see pictures of the deceased man from yesterday!

I made a slideshow from the pictures one of my colleagues took.

Again, this is right outside the window on the far end of the room I am trying to work in.

Slideshow of corpse being removed from vehicle.

Somebody has a case of the Mondays.

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 14:49:23 GMT

I walk in this morning and everyone is standing near one of the large windows facing the street at the far end of the room. I see a red police light blinking.

I ask 'What's going on?', I assume somneone got busted for speeding.

One of them responds 'Dead body.'

I blink. They say 'It's in that car right there, not out on the ground or anything.'

I walk over. They say 'See his foot right there? Man, a foot is not supposed to bend like *that*.'

So yeah. Not really the most positive note to start the week.

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 23:25:12 GMT

Stolen from prikaza

This is rad.

VASSAL is a game engine for building and playing online adaptations of board games and card games. It allows users to play in real time over a live Internet connection (in addition to playing by email). It runs on all platforms, and is free for personal use.

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 19:56:26 GMT

I have a minute between meetings so I am going to do a quick summary:

At the BART station someone was trying to sell all of us a bicycle that was lying in the sidewalk. I find out later that he started smoking a crack pipe in front of everyone - possibly to deal with the stress of not being able to sell the bicycle to buy more crack.

They had a meeting yesterday to name the conference room near me. It was a female only meeting and they are going to name it after a female since all the other conference rooms are named after males (fair enough, IMO.) When they wrote 'Oprah' up on the white board I sort of went into Mocking Mode and stuck my head in there and noted that it may be wise to choose a deceased female - years ago 'Martha Stewart' may have been a great hero/role model/whatever, and look what happened. They asked me who *I* would suggest and (despite me telling them so beforehand), they hadn't heard of any of them. :( Queen Zenobia (or Xenobia if you prefer), Marilyn von Savant, Grace O'Malley, and so on. After a moment of blank looks I was politely dismissed.

I've been listening to Sleepthief a lot lately. If you like female vocals over electronic music it's worth a listen.

The acoustics are great out here today

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 01:47:23 GMT

I have discussed the topic of people yelling things from moving automobiles at pedestrians. The problem is they are moving so fast that it's very tough to understand, you usually only can hear one portion of the screamed statement, and usually that makes no sense. It comes across like this:

' ... ndsmndnm fiELD MICE YOU HA ha nsdnsnas ... '

This is why I was surprised to hear something very clearly shouted from a car on my morning walk. I distinctly heard 'Get a BIKE!'. I was confused for a moment and turned to see if this was someone I knew making some sort of strange joke.

I turn and see Mr. Segueway Rider zooming past me, pumping his fist in the air, middle finger pointing victoriously skyward.

Second thing of note, I arrive at my stop (which was at Civic Center today) and there is a violin player playing his instrument; he has his case open and a little sign noting it is for donations. He is doing what I can only describe as standing full body convulsions. He is playing notes from low to high across different strings over and over again in no particular rhythm. I am still trying to figure out what that was all about. One thing is for sure - he must burn a lot of calories if he keeps that up all day.

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 02:06:35 GMT

Oops.

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 14:53:19 GMT

At the beginning of last week, Wife mentioned she wanted to go camping over the weekend. I said the odds of reserving a capsite at that short of notice was slim to none, but I gave it a shot and failed. She attempted and succeeded. I don't know how she did it, and I am pretty sure I don't want to know, but two words spring to mind; Social. Engineer.

This was also the true test of the new camera I got for her. She has jittery hands and it's always been an issue for photos, and I am pleased to say that optical image stabilization does what I had hoped it would do. Wife was taking pictures like crazy - you know back in the Wild West days, those images of Indians holding onto the side of the horse at full gallop while shooting arrows rapid fire at their enemy? Well, that was Wife...minus the horse and the arrows and the tragic story of trying to defend one's land. What I am trying to say is, I am considering getting a 2 GB memory card to hold all the friggen pictures she takes.

This morning I had to stand near the door on the train. At one of the stops, the door opened and I look out to see a movie theater marquee. I had a very strong urge to just step off the train, wander around that town and watch movies all day. I wonder if it was caused by the proximity of my taking a vacation day next weekend or by the fact that I haven't taken a vacation day in a long time.

Either way, the doors closed and I am here at my desk. How sad.

Wed, 31 May 2006 23:44:22 GMT

I don't really think as myself as having the highest value of any human who has ever lived, but I am confident enough in my personal worth to say the following:

To the lady in the silver Honda Civic from this morning : My life is worth more than a pastry. I don't care how delicious it is. So, how about you put the frickin thing down and pay attention to driving instead of missing me by inches while I cross in the crosswalk when the signal tells me to.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I am going to go get a danish myself. I mean, they are yummy.

X-3

Mon, 29 May 2006 18:05:24 GMT

We saw it and enjoyed it. It seems that a lot of people on my friend's list saw it also, which prompts me to ask a question:

Am I the *only* one who came across a cartoon clip months ago where people dubbed in their own dialogue and the Juggernaut said 'I'm the Juggernaut, b*^$@!' about a thousand times?

It sure seems to me like they threw that in there as a nod to that. It's all over the place on YouTube if you search the word Juggernaut (warning: it's loaded with profanity.)

Edit: Due to requests, here is the Juggernaut link.

Fri, 26 May 2006 05:08:00 GMT

I got on the train and then got off at Rockridge to catch the trailing one hoping to get an empty seat. I was able to grab one of many open seats - the one I grabbed had someone immediately next to it with an MP3 player and a bag of Cheetos. I was deep into my book but still could not ignore the aromatic cheesy assault of that open bag of extreme Cheetos.

He crumples up the bag and puts it in his satchel. He is trying to figure out how to turn up his music. I notice all this by staring at the floor and focusing on my peripheral vision (I used to practice this a lot for sparring, I still do sometimes.)

At this point he start bobbing his head intensly to the music but still has an orangey colored thumb. He is trying to turn up the music without getting cheese powder on his MP3 player. The song picks up and he starts moving his body to the rhythm and he is holding his thumb out in some weird cheese hitchiking position.

I note him trying to figure out how to turn it up without defiling the device and I wonder what he is thinking. The phrase that pops into my head is 'Man, this artificial cheese powder is seriously interfering with my desire to *get down* to this.'

He eventually brushes enough powder off his thumb enough to turn it up (why he didn't figure it out with his other hand I have no idea) and remains seriously bobbing his head for the rest of my ride - almost as if he was daring someone to question his commitment to his choice of music.

After I left, I was approaching the escalator and there was a mother and her daughter in a stroller at the top waiting, not even attempting to ride to the lower level. The daughter held up her tiny hand and said 'Bye bye, train!' and I chuckled. I don't say goodbye to many inanimate objects and could tally off the ones in the past year where I have - they have emotional impact to me. I wonder if that train had such a big emotional impact to the daughter that she was impelled to or if she hasn't discovered that you have to limit your conversation with inanimate objects with only certain exceptions.

To sleep, perchance to .. um .. huh?!

Tue, 23 May 2006 15:44:37 GMT

I couldn't sleep last night. My mind was wandering all over the place and wandered to the MST3K movie I watched the other night. It then wandered to other horrible movies I have seen and this slice of agony jumped in there. Before you click it, let me warn you : it's that movie that Vanilla Ice made in the early 90s. The tagline is "When a girl has a heart of stone, there's only one way to melt it. Just add Ice."

I IMDB it this morning to see what he is up to. He evidently was involved in a knockoff of The Matrix last year called The Helix... Loaded - and yes, it has those three dots in the title. Plot outline : "When "The One" dies, Orpheum must find the "Other One.""

My question is, what the heck is the matter with me? Why can't I go back to the sweet sweet bliss of staring at the ceiling worrying about debt and health and normal human stresses instead of having my psyche blast me with Vanilla frickin' Ice until the wee hours.

My warlord can beat up your warlord.

Thu, 18 May 2006 06:08:38 GMT

An interesting thing happened to me sitting on the bench waiting for the shuttle this morning. I was sitting on the bench deeply engrossed in my book. After about 10 minutes (a long wait for me) I look up to see if the shuttle is pulling up yet. Something in the corner of my eye registers a feeling of 'familar' and I discreetly look over.

It's a co-worker I have worked with for some time. He's sitting right next to me and has been for at least 5 minutes - he's reading a book too. I ask 'What are you reading?' He holds it up and says 'It's about the life of Alexander the Great. How about...' I hold up my book at this point - it's title is 'Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World'

At this point we start debating who was the greater world conqueror. Interesting way to start the day.

Also this week, Wife had a police officer honk his horn at her to make a right turn when a padestrian was walking through the crosswalk at the time. He wasn't close but I believe this is a moving violation anyway.

In other news, the World Cup is about to start. This is generating some raging feelings of missing Ireland even though they didn't qualify this time. I wonder where we'll be in 2010.

Happy Ocho de Mayo!

Mon, 08 May 2006 16:37:47 GMT

Legend has it that on this day, Saint Ocho chased the snakes out of Mexico - straight out into the ocean.

Of course, about 10 months later Saint Patrick chased them all back, but what a glorious 10 months it was.

Also, that is why it's impossible to find good Mexican food in Ireland.

No rest(room) for the wicked

Tue, 02 May 2006 19:11:45 GMT

I have had more weird things happen at this workplace men's room than any other in my whole life.

Yesterday, I was using a urinal when someone stood right next to me with a cell-phone crammed to his ear. He was talking loudly and leaning toward me - so those of you that know this place know that his head is two feet or less from mine. I can even hear the person on the other end a bit. We are the only ones in the room at this time.

This is when I decide to screw with him.

I decide I am going to clue the other person in on what he is doing during their conversation as well and make this individual think twice next time about carrying a conversation right next to my head while I am trying to answer the call of nature. I start making 'relief noises' louder and louder. His coversation pauses and he looks over, I look him right in the eye and say "Whoa, too much coffee." He looks the other way and tries to shield the cell-phone a bit from the source of noise (i.e. me) and I just keep getting louder. I hear questioning sounds from the person at the other end of the phone but can't make it out. I hear the guy respond 'Nothing...nothing. Anyways...' I am trying not to laugh at this point but he refuses to hang up the phone.

Then I flush. I don't exactly yell, but I say really loudly 'Woooo! That's *much* better!' and walk to wash my hands. I wash my hands, turn to see him glaring at me and say loudly 'Haven't had to pee so bad in my LIFE.' and walk out.

Thu, 27 Apr 2006 03:00:13 GMT

We are back in Kentucky. We spent the past few nights in Ohio spending time with the grandparents.

Wife had a strong memory of their perfect backyard and after the initial hello's, we took the camera outside to snap some shots. Evidently, it was a three tiered backyard setup with a birdbath on the second level and a BBQ pit on the third. It had a view looking down into forest.

You'll note I am using past tense. The yard has decades of wear, birdbath is fallen over, plant growth was everywhere and whoever owned the land out back decided to do something with it because now instead of a forest, the backyard overlooks a big dirt road that looks like it will be paved. Wife was pretty broken up.

On a plus note, Grandpa remembered who we were the whole time. He had to ask several times how long we have been married and how old she was, and he was surprised each time we showed up after leaving for a while but at the end of it all he let us know his door was always open to us. The most memorable quote of the trip was when Aunty Gail asked him if he needed anything else (she was playing hostess for lunch) and he said no and she left saying to shout if he wants anyting. About 30 seconds go by and then he muttered to himself 'Well, yeah, I just wish I had more time.' Only Uncle Jim and I were in the room and we look at each other. Someone had to say something so I awkwardly say to Jim 'That's deep.' and he says 'Yeah.' -- grandpa continued eating his cookies and ice cream not aware of our comments or possibly that even what he was thinking he said out loud.

Today he said about six times how great it was that we came to visit and what a surprise it was. It reminded me of a song that mentions goldfish. He wore his captain's hat and looked very dapper.

I am still stressed about work, but that all seems somewhat selfish now. Gail and Jim are in their 60s. Grandpa is 92. Betty (he remarried after grandma died when he was in his 70s, and robbed the cradle aparrently) is 73. We also visited Aunt Willie (for Wilamina maybe? Never found out) is 89. Life goes too fast to let work stress take ownership. I knew this, forgot it, and am re-learning it.

They say goldfish have no memory
I guess their lives are much like mine
And the little plastic castle
Is a surprise every time
And it's hard to say if they're happy
But they don't seem much to mind

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 02:34:57 GMT

We arrived safely on Friday. Despite having to be seated behind a shockingly pungent person for the first leg of the plane trip, things were uneventful.

The closest city to where we are staying is Versailles, Kentucky. I was corrected pretty quick on my pronuciation - it's Ver-sales, not Ver-sigh. Silly me, where would I have gotten that?!

Things have been pretty laid back so far, Wife's Aunt's husband has a pretty huge musical instrument collection and we have been going in there every so often and just picking up and jamming. I forgot how much I enjoyed that.

Also, Wife's Cousin is married to a nice girl from Poland. She has a pretty good accent going so I asked her to say 'Moose and Squirrel' and then explained Rocky and Bullwinkle to her. It was excellent, she's a great sport.

Tomorrow we go to Ohio to visit Wife's 92 year old grandpa for a couple of days, not sure if I am going to have connectivity or not. I'll post more when I get a chance. The views around here are gorgeous and housing is jaw-droppingly cheap compared to what I am used to.

I am still having trouble sleeping thinking about work stress.